‘It’s been too long,’ Howard said gruffly when they were walking, hands entwined, to where she had risked getting a parking ticket, ‘and I don’t think I can go on this way.’

Karin’s reply was an eloquent glance, her fingers tightening on his.

It was then that Howard allowed himself to accept that Germany now had a double hold on him. It was not any more just to see his son that he boarded a plane for Munich. The hope that Karin would be there was equally emotive and no less important to him.

When Howard went to collect Ben it was Lisl Schmidt who opened the door.

‘Please to come in, Howard,’ she said, pleasant as always.

He wiped his feet on the doormat and followed her to the living room of the substantial house Christina’s father had bought for her when she remarried. This was the first time that Howard had been invited any further inside it than the hall.

Mr Schmidt didn’t offer a penny, though, towards buying the house we lived in in Manchester, he reflected. And I’ll never let what I do for my children be conditional on their pleasing me. Meanwhile I have only one child and he isn’t even living with me.

‘Where’s Ben?’ he asked, sounding more curt than he had intended. Christina’s mother was a nice woman and didn’t deserve to take the flak. It was too late now, though, for Howard to do what he should have – say to her, ‘How are you?’

Her husband had died last year and she was now living with Christina, an arrangement Howard knew was not uncommon in Germany. People here didn’t just leave their widowed parents to get by as best they may. The family outings he had observed in Munich’s squares and parks on Sundays were invariably complete with the elderly, leaving the onlooker in no doubt that Germans had more time, and respect, for their senior citizens than could be said of the British.

‘Please to sit down, Howard,’ said Lisl, ‘there is something I must to tell to you.’

Howard remained standing, his stomach performing a somersault – or so it felt. ‘Is Ben ill?’

Lisl shook her head. ‘He is in the playroom.’

‘Then what is all this about? I only have the rest of today and some of tomorrow to spend with him, and the time we’re together is very precious to me.’

‘You think I do not know that? Christina, she knows it also.’

‘Is Christina at home?’

She gave him a weary smile. ‘No, and if my guest does not sit down I cannot. I am having trouble with my varicose veins.’